orion lum. @orionlum - Tumblr Blog

Who: Open [0/2]

Where: Grand Teton Mall

When: 3 July 2044

When the chaos of the outbreak is dealt with, a quarantine weathered and a monumental clean up effort begun, it takes the cake when Alexei Volkov dangles temptation of promise in status and resources over the heads of the shocked and grieving, conditional with the cost of betrayal to their own. A surprising number of individuals seem entranced by the lure of his bait, forgetting that by default there will be more to go around with the loss of 89 individuals to feed, protect. It’s a fact that many seem to overlook. The murmurs following Alexei’s latest proclamation leave a bitter taste in Orion’s mouth.

He finds himself walking the hallways of the mall with a self-imposed task of assessing damage, but he can't help but be distracted by the way the halls are lined with signs of violence. The splatters of dried blood on the floor & walls... The remains of improvised weapons scattered... Doors busted in--some with signs of failed barricades and some simply swung wide open. It's hard to objectively look past.

There are signs of clean up around some. He imagines the ones who survived can't bare to live on in spaces with such vivid, physical reminders--to continue in places of tainted sanctity that had been held for many years. His own shared quarters were fortunate to have not been marred by violence but many couldn't say the same. He had a feeling there would a number of vacancies in the surrounding living spaces once tallies of what rooms were now without tenants were properly accounted for.

There was a lot that needed to be done, and he had a feeling that he and the others that shared overlapping skill sets with his own would be busy in the coming days. It didn’t help that they were still playing catch up with that last storm.

He rubbed a hand along his jaw, absently making a mental note that he needed to shave when he had a moment. With a sigh he backtracked to the delivery bay, and slid into a seat on a bench on which was already occupied on one end by another that looked just as tired as him. "It's really been one shit show after another lately, hasn't it?"

#07.03.2044

who: @ohsimon

where: grand teton mall, service hallways

when: early morning, 30th june 2044

The service tunnels at the Grand Teton Mall were ones that Orion was usually pleased to find a quiet respite. They were a face of the mall that many didn’t usually traverse, as plain and difficult to navigate they were compared to the main areas that people usually walked on their day to day. The service tunnels were someplace that Orion often found himself maintaining, making sure the systems that kept water and electricity running were behaving as they ought to. It was a mindless task for him when sleep failed to catch in the stillness of solid ground, when the rigidity of a bed that didn’t sway with waves was too difficult to ignore. He’d woken early, before the sun even, but still yet late enough for Orion to find it difficult to slip back into slumber.

He’d gotten dressed, put on his worn leather and canvas jacket that had many signs of patching, particularly along sleeves -- the errant sparks of a welder’s fire were not kind maintaining pristine clothing -- and set out for a walk in the back hallways with his bag of tools, looking for anything that might keep his mind occupied for a while.

He’d been deep in concentration, focused on mending an old water heater with a stubborn leak he’d found in his meanderings, when the loud bang of a door crashing against a wall startled him. He frowned, sighing heavily. He didn’t particularly mind when the kids liked to run around in the back hallways but he did mind when they threw doors around with little care. It wasn’t like they could just pop over to Home Depot to buy a new one if they tore it off the hinges--nor were there a surplus of supplies to patch drywall if they sent the handle through the wall--cosmetic patches and fixes weren’t exactly high on the priority list for them to waste resources on. They’d had this conversation multiple times, honestly.

Orion rolled out from underneath the boiler on an old skateboard he repurposed for working in tight spaces like these and let his head lamp drop around his neck as he got to his feet. He poked his head around the corner, fully expecting to take a deep breath to get on with an exasperated scolding, but what he saw was not a gaggle of overly enthusiastic kids messing about. No, he would have really much rather preferred that, because what he saw instead was an entirely disheveled looking Simon Sandhu running for his life in what looked to be pajamas with a runner not far behind him. A runner. Inside the mall where dozens lived. Fucking shit. Orion scrambled for his tools, blindly thrusting his hand for -- there. His hands found purchase just as the scramble of footsteps drew ever near.

“Duck!” He swung the wrench with an oversized handle meant for providing extra leverage for stubborn bolts--but in this case it went beyond it’s intended purpose. Thankfully Simon did indeed duck, because the heavy metal of the wrench bludgeoned into the runner’s head just bare inches behind where Simon had stumbled past. “You okay? Your gun jam or something?” Orion asked, giving the other man a once over. “Also,” he said, not waiting for an answer to his question, turning his gaze towards the downed runner, which, thankfully hadn’t moved from where it had been thrown from the force of the blow a few feet away. “That. Why is that here?” He said, waving the bloodied wrench towards the runner. Which, speaking of, Orion cautiously stepped towards it, shining the light of his head lamp towards it--there was no way he wanted to turn his back towards it without double checking. Yep. Definitely down for the count. But that didn’t mean it was the only one. In fact it probably wasn’t the only one. “What the fuck is going on?”